Riot police clash with students as education protests rage in France

Riot police have clashed with protesters as thousands of students demonstrating over education standards disrupted more than 700 schools in France.

Fires have burned in the streets as high school pupils and others objected to a lack of teachers, overcrowded classrooms and run-down buildings. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said 1,747 people were arrested on Friday.

The protests began last week in the capital Paris and have spread across the country, with cities including Montpellier, Nantes and Marseille affected.

French Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin said things had "gone from high-school student demonstrations to a public order disturbance".

Darmanin said that 735 of France's 3,700 schools were now affected "one way or another" by the violent protests.

Announcing the arrests late on Friday, Nuñez told France's TF1 television network: "We are sliding into riot and urban violence, and we are using all intermediate means to put an end to it."

Meanwhile, Education Minister Édouard Geffray said the movement had been hijacked by non-students.

He told French broadcaster BFMTV that teachers had said "the people in front of me were not my students".